Using ActionScript to specify settings in the Hue/Saturation Effect

Question

Hi there,
I have been trying to write a little action script that sets up a bunch of defaults in the Hue Saturation plug-in but can only get so far.
The syntax either falls over or I am missing something here because the same code will work when in After Affects but if I try to run a script from the script UI directory. I get a "property undefined" returned. Uusally you just call the property by name and all is well. In this particularl case though. The only way to access say the "Red channel Saturation" is to have the plug-in in the Red channel pop-up. Ok so it works but not when running an external script.
The following does work from within AE but not from the UI scripts directory via the Window menu.
currProj = app.project(index).layer(index):
currEffect = currProj.Effects.addProperty("Hue/Saturation");
currEffectProp = currProj.effect("Hue/Saturation");
currEffectProp.masterSaturation.setValue(20);//this call works
currEffectProp.channelControl.setValue(2);//this call works changing the plug-in pane to the Red Channel
currEffectProp.redSaturation.setValue(-5); //this returns: "TypeError: undefined is not an object" – yet when run within AE as an expression it works fine???
Any help would be great – thank you

Answer 1

"Max thank you for solving this for me."
I still don't know what went wrong in your original code, so it's not really "solved" I guess!
Anyway, about layer("ADBE Effect Parade") it's the same thing as layer.Effects or layer("Effects") but I'm never sure of what will work in a non-english version of AE.
That's why I'm adding the Hue/Saturation effect using "ADBE HUE SATURATION" instead of "Hue/Saturation"
So a useful thing to do is to create a script in the base "Script" folder, and write something like:
var comp = app.panel.activeItem;
if (     comp
     && comp instanceof CompItem
     && comp.selectedLayers.length
     && comp.selectedLayers[0].selectedProperties.length)
     var prop = comp.selectedLayers[0].selectedProperties[0];
     var str = "";
     while (prop)
          str += prop.matchName + " (" + prop.numProperties + "): " + prop.name;
          prop = prop.parentProperty;
     alert(str);
Again, typing in the browser, check the code first ;-)
Something like that will give you:
- the matchName of the property selected (which can be anything: effect, shape, mask ... or any property of these)
- the number of sub-properties of the current poperty (so for the Hue/Saturation effect, that will give you the number of controls of the plugin UI, although there may be some hidden ones too)
- the name of the property
... for the selected property and its parents, up to the layer it belongs to.
I find that quite handy when you want to know the matchname of an effect for example.